Cloud v enterprises

Cloud-based compute, networking and storage infrastructure, and cloud-native applications, are now firmly on the radar of CIOs -- be they in startups, small businesses or large enterprises. So much so that, whereas a few years ago the question facing them was "Which workloads should I move to the cloud?", it's now becoming "Which, if any, workloads should I keep on-premises?". While most organisations will probably end up pursuing a hybrid cloud strategy in the medium term, it's worth examining this turnaround, and the reasons behind it. The general background, as ZDNet has explored in recent special features, is the competitive pressure for organisations to undergo a digital transformation based on cloud-native applications and methods such as DevOps, in pursuit of improved IT and organisational performance. However, it's unlikely to be all over for the enterprise data center just yet: businesses still need to 'keep the lights on' while modernising their app portfolios, and … [Read more...] about Cloud v. Data Center: Key trends for IT decision-makers

And to explore more about this topic, check out the full ZDNet/TechRepublic special feature The Cloud v. Data Center Decision. You can also download the full report as a PDF ebook (free registration required). 1. The default has flipped Up until a few years ago, companies had to make a strong case for why they wanted to use the cloud, and they often had to overcome fears about security and lack of control. Today, the script has flipped. Many IT leaders now have to justify why they want to run something on-premise, if there are comparable options in the public cloud. Plenty of companies ARE still choosing their own data center, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, but the context has completely changed. 2. Apps are cloud-first When it comes to new applications for standard business functions, most enterprises are choosing go cloud-first. There's a very high bar to justify running something like email, CRM, or ERP on-premise. Launching custom applications or migrating legacy applications is … [Read more...] about 3 things to know about the cloud v. data center decision

A new alliance between Cray and Microsoft will bring Cray's supercomputing capabilities to Microsoft's Azure cloud, in an effort to help businesses more easily scale workloads for artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, modeling, and more, according to a Monday press release. The partnership will enable new capabilities for businesses in the cloud, but it will also help broaden the reach of Cray's capabilities, the release said. Customers who may have previously been unable to access an on-premise Cray system will now have an option to engage its features in the cloud. "By working with Cray to provide dedicated supercomputers in Azure, we are offering customers uncompromising performance and scalability that enables a host of new previously unimaginable scenarios in the public cloud," Microsoft Azure corporate vice president Jason Zander said in the release. "More importantly, we're moving customers into a new era by empowering them to use HPC and AI to drive breakthrough advances … [Read more...] about Cray supercomputing comes to Microsoft Azure to boost AI workloads in the cloud

Cloud adoption is growing in the enterprise, and hybrid cloud is leading the way, according to a new study from SUSE, released Wednesday. According to the report, 66% of respondents expect growth for hybrid cloud to continue, compared to 55% for private cloud and 36% for public cloud. Moves to the cloud are mostly about cost, with more than 60% of respondents claiming cost reduction was their primary driver for adoption. Additionally, 59% said they were moving to the cloud to improve developer and programmer productivity, while 58% were making the move to consolidate their data center. Despite the plethora of tools available through the public cloud, private and hybrid models remain the most in-demand options for mission-critical workloads, the report said. Some 89% said they would actually prefer to shift from doing development in the public cloud to running production in a private cloud, the report noted. SEE: Cloud computing policy template (Tech Pro Research) The report … [Read more...] about Report: Hybrid cloud strategies growing faster than private or public cloud

On Wednesday at DockerCon EU in Copenhagen, Docker and IBM announced an expanded partnership that will make it easier for IBM Cloud shops to containerize apps with Docker Enterprise Edition, and make certified IBM products available in the Docker store. IBM has collaborated with Docker for years, but the expanded partnership signifies a direct effort by IBM to ease the transition to next-generation infrastructure for its customers. Nowhere is this more evident than with the creation of a version of Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) for IBM Cloud. According to an IBM press release, the Docker EE for IBM Cloud "will allow customers to easily bring up a Docker environment to containerize their existing workloads and run them on IBM Cloud." SEE: Why containers are critical to successful DevOps projects (Tech Pro Research) Once a customer uses the new Docker EE solution to bring their apps to the IBM Cloud, they'll be able to rapidly integrate those apps with other IBM Cloud services. … [Read more...] about IBM, Docker grow partnership to drive container adoption across public cloud

Amazon had a need for a non-relational, highly scalable approach to data, and every enterprise is now swimming in NoSQL as a result. As Amazon CTO Werner Vogels outlined, Amazon's "straining database infrastructure on Oracle led us to evaluate if we could develop a purpose-built database that would support our business needs for the long term." Dynamo was born, initially as a published paper that launched a series of promising NoSQL databases like Apache Cassandra. In so doing, Amazon arguably began to lay the foundation for a clear and present danger to Oracle's database reign. Dynamo wasn't the first NoSQL database, nor is the subsequent DynamoDB the biggest challenger to Oracle. But by scratching an internal itch for greater scale, Amazon set up the start of a database war that threatens Oracle's long-term dominance. Amazon didn't set out to topple Oracle. Far from it. As Vogels described, Amazon was simply trying to take care of its increasingly demanding database needs, as … [Read more...] about How Amazon helped bring NoSQL to the enterprise mainstream

The public cloud services market is on the rise worldwide this year, with revenue expected to reach $260.2 billion by the end of 2017—an increase of 18.5% from the year before, according to a new report from Gartner. Strong Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) performance are the main drivers of growth, the report found. "Final data for 2016 shows that software as a service (SaaS) revenue was far greater in 2016 than expected, reaching $48.2 billion," Sid Nag, research director at Gartner, said in a press release. "SaaS is also growing faster in 2017 than previously forecast, leading to a significant uplift in the entire public cloud revenue forecast."In 2017, SaaS revenue is expected to grow 21% over 2016, reaching $58.6 billion. This rapid increase in adoption is due to providers delivering more applications and add-ons as a service, this report noted. These SaaS solutions are designed for specific purposes, and can often deliver better business … [Read more...] about Public cloud services revenue will hit $260B in 2017 thanks to massive SaaS and IaaS growth

It's no secret that the cloud is fundamentally changing the way enterprises approach security and legacy tech tools, and platforms may not be able to keep up. According to RedLock's Cloud Security Trends, released Thursday, 81% of organizations are not managing host vulnerabilities in the cloud, which sets them up to potentially be the victim of an attack or breach. The reason for this is that previous vulnerability management investments simply don't have the context necessary to help IT manage the new threats in the cloud. RedLock CTO Gaurav Kumar said in a press release that many organizations are "falling behind" in protecting their public cloud environments. Recent breaches at major firms show that "the threats are real and cybercriminals are actively targeting information left unsecured in the public cloud," Kumar said in the release. "It's imperative for every organization to develop an effective and holistic strategy now to protect their public cloud computing environment." … [Read more...] about 81% of organizations fail to properly address cloud vulnerabilities, report says

On Monday, Oracle announced its AI Platform Cloud Service, which will help developers more quickly create and deploy AI solutions in the enterprise, according to a press release. The cloud service, unveiled at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, will allow companies to tap deep learning capabilities "to better understand enterprise data and transform corporate business processes and user experiences," the release stated. With the platform, developers and data scientists can rapidly set up a secure and scalable environment for new deep learning models in the cloud, Oracle said. Oracle Cloud has been engineered to streamline model training by tapping customers' key enterprise data, object storage, and GPUs, according to the release. The AI Platform Cloud instances come with several AI libraries, tools, and deep learning frameworks already installed, the release noted, including Caffe, Jupyter Notebook, Keras, NymPy, scikit-learn, and TensorFlow. Oracle Object Store is also available for … [Read more...] about Oracle’s AI-powered cloud, bot solutions power data analytics and improved UX

Oracle's new Autonomous Database Cloud aims to automate many of the human processes associated with updating and maintaining a database, chairman of the board and CTO Larry Ellison announced at the opening keynote of Oracle OpenWorld 2017 on Sunday. The Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud in built on Oracle Database 18c and uses machine learning to automate some of the processes associated with tuning the database, according to a press release announcing the product. This could help lessen human labor, but also eliminate human error, ultimately boosting performance and improving security, the release said. "This is the most important thing we've done in a long, long time," Ellison said in the release. "The automation does everything. We can guarantee availability of 99.995 percent, less than 30 minutes of planned or unplanned downtime." SEE: Databases in DevOps requires agile data management (Tech Pro Research) Machine learning is used to provide adaptive performance tuning to the … [Read more...] about Oracle’s Autonomous Database Cloud boosts performance and security with less manual work